JERUSALEM — About 10 hours before Sen. Barack Obama checked into the King David, Avi Levi was driving by the hotel and felt a construction vehicle strike the rear of his No. 13 bus.
He stopped, thinking it was just an accident on the heavily guarded route past West Jerusalem's classiest hotels and shops, an area dotted with construction sites.
But within seconds, the yellow backhoe loader's massive shovel was smashing the side of his bus like a battering ram, nearly tipping it over and showering 30 screaming passengers with glass.
It was the start of a rampage Tuesday that ended with six Israelis injured and the Palestinian assailant dead, shot by a pistol-toting Jewish settler and a border policeman in front of scores of terrified onlookers.
The dead man, wearing shorts and the white skullcap typical of an observant Muslim, was identified as a 22-year-old Jerusalem resident employed for years driving construction vehicles. Israeli authorities called it a terrorist attack but said he may have acted alone, inspired by a similar rampage three weeks ago.
Obama, speaking from Jordan before his arrival here amid heightened police vigilance, deplored the attack as "a reminder of what Israelis have courageously lived with on a daily basis for far too long." He added, "I will always support Israel in confronting terrorism and pursuing everlasting peace and security."
In fact, it's been years since the second Palestinian uprising petered out and most Israelis stopped fearing suicide bombings on buses and in crowded cafes. The army has sealed off the West Bank and Gaza Strip more effectively. But Tuesday's rampage appears to be part of a new threat. Like two deadly attacks on the Jewish side of the city this year, it was carried out by a Palestinian whose residence in mostly Arab East Jerusalem gave him license to travel throughout Israel.
And as in the previous attack, in which three Israelis were killed July 2, the weapon was a heavy construction vehicle to which the perpetrator apparently had access through his job.
"They keep on inventing ways to attack us," Mayor Uri Lupolianski told reporters, after hearing the nearby commotion and rushing to the scene. "Every work tool has become a weapon."
The string of attacks has raised tensions between Jews and Arabs in Jerusalem, the city at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Lupolianski joined Public Security Minister Avi Dichter in demanding that the latest assailant's home be demolished as a deterrent. The mayor also called for "rethinking" the kinds of jobs Jerusalem Palestinians are allowed to hold.
